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2[W]e should not expect literary theory to yield anything fundamentally new in its own field: we will continue paraphrasing Aristotle’s basic insights. I can see only one possibility for moving beyond what has long since been known: interdisciplinary engagement with the advancement of knowledge in other disciplines, at present above all a new field that has emerged only recently and consists of the philosophy of mind, psychological cognitivism, the affective sciences, cognitive linguistics, and neurological brain research – a cognitive turn to follow the linguistic one.If I were a young scholar starting my career now, I would probably embrace this transdisciplinary field and set myself the aim of developing literary theory into a cognitive poetics.(Harald Fricke 2007: 193)

3Cognitive Poeticsinformativity: comprehension meaningaesthetics: reception and texture feelingethics: schemas and worlds value~ The application of cognitive science to understanding literary reading~ Key concepts include prototypicality, embodiment, metaphorical projection~ Treats reading as natural and within an ecology of language~ Part of a literary-linguistic ( = stylistics) tradition > part of applied linguistics~ Allows both social and individual dimensions to be theorised~ Argues for renewed paradigms in literary scholarship~ Accommodates artistic sensibility and scientific rationalism~ Offers discipline, system and currency~ Reasserts a humanistic perspective on the communicative arts

4Psychology Cognitive Poetics Stability of personality:Open Conscientious Extroverted Agreeable NeuroticThe power of creative imagination:projection adaptability plasticity - of personality - of fictional minds~ The application of cognitive science to understanding literary reading~ Key concepts include prototypicality, embodiment, metaphorical projection~ Treats reading as natural and within an ecology of language~ Part of a literary-linguistic ( = stylistics) tradition > part of applied linguistics~ Allows both social and individual dimensions to be theorised~ Argues for renewed paradigms in literary scholarship~ Accommodates artistic sensibility and scientific rationalism~ Offers discipline, system and currency~ Reasserts a humanistic perspective on the communicative artsInflexibility of personality:curiosity ethical sense communicativeness empathy self-confidence

6– Reading as control(‘The weave of the daughter’s life in modern San Francisco and her mother’s life in China holds you right to the end’, ‘It’s gripping stuff’, ‘I couldn’t put it down’)– Reading as transportation / journey(‘We follow the boy on his journey round the world’, ‘... quite a few battle scenes which I found slightly heavy going’)– Reading as investment(‘By the end I was emotionally drained but rewarded by it’, ‘It rewards your effort with a great payoff at the end’, ‘Well worth the investment – emotional and financial!’, ‘You get more out of it on each reading’, ‘If you can take a chance by putting a lot of energy into the first half, then the rest of the book is a real page-turner’, ‘Worth the effort’)

10Mother and sire, to you do I commendTiny Erotion, who must now descend,A child, among the shadows, and appearBefore Hell’s bandog and hell’s gondolier.Of six hoar winters she had felt the cold,But lacked six days of being six years old.Now she must come, all playful, to that placeWhere the great ancients sit with reverend face;Now lisping, as she used, of whence she came,Perchance she names and stumbles at my name.O’er these so fragile bones, let there be laidA plaything for a turf; and for that maidThat swam light-footed as the thistle-burrOn thee, O Mother earth, be light on her.Robert Louis Stevenson

11On My First DaughterHere lies to each her parents’ ruth,Mary, the daughter of their youth:Yet, all heaven’s gifts, being heaven’s due,It makes the father, less to rue.At six months’ end, she parted henceWith safety of her innocence;Whose soul heaven’s queen, (whose name she bears)In comfort of her mother’s tears,Hath placed amongst her virgin-train:Where, while that sever’d doth remain,This grave partakes the fleshly birth.Which cover lightly, gentle earth.Ben Jonson ( )

12On My First SonFarewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy,Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.O, could I lose all father, now. For whyWill man lament the state he should envy?To have so soon ’scaped world’s and flesh’s rage,And if no other misery, yet age?Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say here doth lieBen. Jonson his best piece of poetry.For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,As what he loves may never like too much.Ben Jonson

13Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Constance:Grief fills the room up of my absent child,Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,Remembers me of all his gracious parts,Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;Then I have reason to be fond of grief.Fare you well. Had you such a loss as I,I could give better comfort than you do.[She unbinds her hair]I will not keep this form upon my headWhen there is such disorder in my wit.O Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son,My life, my joy, my food, my all the world,My widow-comfort, and my sorrow’s cure![Exit]William Shakespeare (1596), King John (III. iv )

15Though my mother was already two years dead Long DistanceThough my mother was already two years deadDad kept her slippers warming by the gas,put hot water bottles her side of the bedand still went to renew her transport pass.You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone.He’d put you off an hour to give him timeto clear away her things and look aloneas though his still raw love were such a crime.He couldn’t risk my blight of disbeliefthough sure that very soon he’d hear her keyscrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.He knew she’d just popped out to get the tea.I believe life ends with death, and that is all.You haven’t both gone shopping; just the same,in my new black leather phone book there’s your nameand the disconnected number I still call.Tony Harrison (1978)Though my motheras though his still raw lovethough sure that very soonjust the sameT1: Father/mother/son, going shopping, popping out to get the teaT2: Mother diesT3: 2 years later, son regards father: re-iterated events (with micro-shift of ‘one hour’)T4: Father diesT5: son writes poem.Poem sequence:T3 tw - (T2 ws) - T3 tw (T1 ws) – T5 tw - (T4 ws)

16Death of a Son(who died in a mental hospital aged one)And bricks for blood. A houseOf stones and blood in breathing silence with the otherSomething has ceased to come along with me.Birds singing crazy on its chimneys.Something like a person: something very like one.But this was silence,And there was no nobility in itOr anything like that.This was something else, this wasHearing and speaking though he was a house drawnSomething was there like a one yearInto silence, this wasOld house, dumb as stone. While the near buildingsSomething religious in his silence,Sang like birds and laughedUnderstanding the pactSomething shining in his quiet,This was different this was altogether something else:They were to have with silence. But heThough he never spoke, thisNeither sang nor laughed. He did not bless silenceWas something to do with death.Like bread, with words.He did not forsake silence.And then slowly the eye stopped lookingInward. The silence rose and became still.But rather, like a house in mourningThe look turned to the outer place and stopped,Kept the eye turned in to watch the silence whileWith the birds still shrilling around him.The other houses like birdsAnd as if he could speakSang around him.He turned over on his side with his one yearAnd the breathing silence neitherRed as a woundMoved nor was still.He turned over as if he could be sorry for thisI have seen stones: I have seen brickAnd out of his eyes two great tears rolled, like stones, and he died.But this house was made up of neither bricks nor stoneJon Silkin (1954)But a house of flesh and bloodWith flesh of stone

17degree of attenuation minimal maximal LIFE LITERATURESimulation = the principle of cognitive projection ~ attenuation from life to literary worlds~ Personality is ‘soft assembled’ ~ Imagination gives us a projective capacity ~ Empathy (etc.) can be understood practised taughtdegree of attenuation minimal maximal LIFE LITERATURE